Shaun de Waal reviews the latest DVD releases
The Jane Austen Book Club
Three excellent movies are released this month on DVD, but I’ll start with this one because it runs the risk of being neglected. That is, it could be seen as a mere “chick flick”. And it is a “chick flick”, I suppose, but compared with piffle like Sex and the City, say, it’s a very intelligent and engaging one that goes way beyond the “chick” (or ladies’ book club) audience. Various Californian women, each suffering a different trauma, decide to start a book club devoted to the works of Jane Austen; one book a month to be read and discussed. Into this club they draw a dishy single man (Hugh Dancy), which of course generates romantic complications — amusingly and touchingly. The performances all round are excellent, the plot clicks neatly into place, and it’s all a great deal of fun, with a tear or two to be shed en route.
Eastern Promises
Director David Cronenberg and actor Viggo Mortensen team up again after the success of A History of Violence, to which this is something of a companion piece. It’s about Russian gangsters in London, and a woman’s gradual discovery of their frightening world. This is a thriller that emphasises the human dimension, with Mortensen giving an utterly convincing portrayal of one of the gangsters, tattoos and all. As befits a director who practically invented a whole new genre of horror, there are moments of pure visceral terror, such as the sequence of Mortensen’s naked hand-to-hand combat in a sauna. Certainly, there are problems with the limited women’s roles here (it’s certainly a “chap flick”), but in general this is brilliant, gripping stuff.
No Country for Old Men
After some dithering about with remakes and the like, the Coen brothers returned to top form with this modern-day western and were handsomely rewarded with a handful of Oscars. Josh Brolin is a man who stumbles on a stash of cash and runs away with it; Javier Bardem is the terrifying assassin on his trail; and Tommy Lee Jones is the cop trying to make sense of it all. A movie that is simply a relentless pursuit, it’s stripped down to essentials, morally minimal and shot with bleak but beautiful sparseness. Masterful.
ALSO RELEASED
Into the Wild
Based on a true story, this is Sean Penn’s epic meditation on trying to escape the toils of family and society. Some found it deeply compelling; others found it as self-indulgent as the young protagonist with dreams of living off the land.
Grace Is Gone
John Cusack gives one of his best performances here as the dad who takes his two daughters on a long road trip rather than tell them the truth about mom. Small-scale, almost a TV movie; predictable but undoubtedly affecting.
Away from Her
Directed by actor Sarah Polley (the lead in the impressive The Secret Life of Words), this is a story about an ageing couple dealing with Alzheimer’s. Good to see Julie Christie back in action, and this performance is in contention for her best ever. Excellent.
Gabriel
Fantasy action with good angels versus bad angels in some futuristic urban wasteland. Attractive lead, decent CGI, but lacking in the script and plot departments.
Evening
Weepy about a dying woman (Vanessa Redgrave) recalling her sad romantic past to her daughters. Hackneyed and rather overdone.
12 Hours to Live
Poor FBI action about a diabetic girl who gets kidnapped. You can see the whole plot unfold without even watching the film.
Outlaw
Decent actors (Sean Bean, Bob Hoskins) wasted on tedious vigilante-gang bang-bang. Basically, fantasy violence for right-wing males seething with impotent resentment.
Homeland Security (also known as My Mom’s New Boyfriend)
And it’s straight to DVD for this clunker of a comedy about a CIA agent whose mom hooks up with a criminal under surveillance. Meg Ryan and Antonio Banderas have done much better work elsewhere (not that that would have been hard), and if this was an attempt to give Tom Hanks’s son Colin a movie career, it was a bad place to start.